


Natasha Has No Heart

by koosalka



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:55:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25135747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koosalka/pseuds/koosalka
Summary: There are really no feelings involved, at least not the kind of feelings that ladies' novels are written about. It's just that they are both cold, sad and  so goddamn tired.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 2
Kudos: 78





	Natasha Has No Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [У Наташи нет сердца](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25053772) by [koosalka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/koosalka/pseuds/koosalka). 



> This is a translation of my own old work that I suddenly found pretty good. I honestly have no idea if reading this translation is any better than just using google translator as I've probably made tons of mistakes (English is my 2nd language) but hey, there's only one way to find out riiiight? Anyway, please let me know down in the comments if there are any really terrible mistakes that I should fix ASAP. Enjoy!
> 
> First published in Russian on 01/20/19.

As soon as the three of them get used to their new secret life, Sam is suddenly gone. He almost got his cover blown when he was with Steve once, and now he leaves so that they won’t be seen together anymore.

Now that there’s only two of them left, it becomes even harder than before. Natasha and Steve are not at all as close as they used to be, not after everything that happened when the Avengers were torn apart. When Sam leaves, he takes away the only opportunity to talk to someone about unimportant things. Natasha has no heart, but after years of normal-ish life this loneliness feels unexpectedly awful.

That is the time it begins.

One day in February, in a musty safe house in the suburbs of Portland, Natasha decides to ignore the estrangement that is there between them and just comes to Steve’s room, acting like there’s nothing unusual in her actions. She sits on his bed next to him and hugs him. After a few minutes of holding each other they both simultaneously let go and stand up in silence. This night Natasha sleeps like a baby.

It happens a few more times. When they feel blue or lonely or even just physically cold, they will hold each other, and at the end one of them will kiss the other on the cheek or forehead.

Natasha gets used to it unexpectedly quickly. Every day she almost eagerly awaits the evening to feel Steve’s warmth and let him feel hers. In his arms she feels calm and comfortable, almost like there’s nothing she needs to fear. His stubble is prickly against her forehead, but it feels nice in its own way, too.

Then they somehow have sex. Of course, they are still nothing more than friends. It happens in Dnepropetrovsk (it’s really funny how Steve can never get the name right). One evening, as rain water is being mixed with snow outside the window and an old clock is ticking loudly on the wall, their usual kiss lands on the lips. None of them expected or planned this. None of them is surprised, though.

And it probably looks really romantic from the outside, but in fact, they don’t feel the spark that is always there in ladies’ novels. They are both cold and lonely and both haven’t been getting laid for a while. There are absolutely no feelings involved.

Everything turns out great. Cuddling with Steve in the afterglow feels so nice that Natasha even forgets that she normally prefers to go back to her own bed after sex. Sleeping is his arms feels like heaven as whenever Natasha’s dream is even slightly disturbing, Steve pulls her closer, and all the nightmares disappear in the incredibly intimate feeling of his breath against her skin. This is all just too good, and Natasha should be suspicious, but she honestly just doesn’t feel like it at this moment.

Up to this point they’ve hardly been discussing anything but work, not to mention they’ve kept silent about all of the not quite suited for friends things they have been doing. But now it’s like a switch has been turned, and they start talking to each other about everything. It feels so good not to keep the mouth shut, just as if it’s 2014 again, SHIELD seems absolutely unshakable, and the two of them, not really close friends yet, keep chatting about small things even on missions. Shutting up turns out to be hard, but Natasha does her best to do it as often as possible so that she doesn’t get too used to good things.

In Busan, Natasha uses hair dye from a nearby supermarket to bleach her hair and it makes her look like a pale moth, but Steve says that she would still look great with any hair color. After that, Natasha doesn’t feel as disgusted by her own reflection anymore.

Ice cold rains are pouring in Vladivostok. One night, after Natasha spent an hour under a blanket and still failed to get warm, she goes to the room next door and snuggles next to Steve’s side. “I’m cold,” she explains hoarsely. Steve doesn’t mind, he moves her head onto his chest and keeps stroking it until she falls asleep, shrouded in the warmth of his body. Ever since then, they share a bad every night.

There is still no relationship between them. They don’t say romantic stuff to each other (although sometimes Natasha feels overwhelmed by the urge to do so), they don’t go on dates and almost never kiss outside the bed. Which is really a shame as Natasha wants to kiss Steve all the time.

Sam comes back. He's already been away for a bit too long, but Natasha feels sort of annoyed by the fact that she and Steve won’t be alone anymore. Naturally, Sam quickly starts noticing things. Answering his question, Natasha tells him the most emotionless version of the truth. His smile is way too understanding, Natasha calls him a rather rude Russian word, and none of them continues the topic.

In Dubrovnik, she and Steve pretend to be a happy couple in order to blend in. They keep murmuring sweet nothings in English in each other’s ears and eat one ice cream cone together, sitting on the side of a fountain. Natasha gets so carried away that she almost loses sight of the suspect.

One night in Cairo, after sex, while Steve is asleep already, Natasha keeps looking at his face in the dim moonlight, not feeling like thinking about how sentimental all of it is. At some point a clear, perfectly formed thought comes to her mind: “I love you”. It feels so right, as if deep down Natasha has always known it. With a feeling of satisfaction – she has finally realized what she needed to – Natasha gives Steve a light kiss on the shoulder and falls asleep.

The next morning seems perfectly normal until Natasha’s gaze meets Steve and she remembers what was on her mind last night. She nearly flinches at that thought – just nearly, but of course, Steve notices that, opens his eyes slightly and asks sleepily what’s wrong. If their story were right, it would be the perfect time to confess, but they are who they are, and those words would only complicate things – if not ruin them at all. So Natasha keeps quiet, just snuggles a bit closer to Steve as a small concession to herself.

After that, it gets both easier and harder. On one hand, now Natasha knows exactly how she feels so she can control the feeling better, but on the other… the pain from stupid novels and cheap movies come to her, and it feels awful. Because Steve is so nice, so warm and understanding, and his smile is so rare but so incredibly beautiful, and Natasha can’t even say that she loves him.

Because the two of them have no future. Because the reason wht they started this whole thing wasn’t having feelings for each other. Because that time years ago Steve rejected her. Because he kissed agent thirteen. Because he is free to choose whoever he wants and it's certainly not going to be an unprincipled assassin with blood-stained hands. Because it will all end after the next big battle, when they are forgiven and can go back to their previous lives.

Too much “because”, so Natasha locks this thought up and tries her best not to bring it up.

But sometimes it’s so difficult not to, like now, in this tiny bedroom in Lisbon, when there are golden dust particles dancing in the sunrise light from the open window. Natasha is so happy to lie on Steve’s chest in her underwear only and kiss him, wetly and gently, not stopping herself from moaning with satisfaction. She wants to confess so bad, and she doesn’t even care about his reaction. This morning, it feels like it’s going to be okay. Like Steve might say that he loves her, too.

Because he often smiles at her and sometimes reaches out to kiss her for no reason. Because he makes sure she is not cold (“Steve, I’m not ten!”) and pulls her chair out when she sits. Because he is right now gently poking her nose with his, his hands stroking her neck and shoulders.

This is the moment when his cell phone rings. Once Steve finally manages to reach out for it despite Natasha’s attempts not to let him and takes a look at the display, he says: “Tony” quietly and clearly, and everything ends.

A day later, Natasha realizes that that was the moment when literally everything ended.

//

The world is slowly coming back to life after the snap. Cities are being rebuilt after fires and accidents, despite the lack of manpower.

The team is being rebuilt, too. At least they made peace with Tony (although he says he’ll kick their asses as soon as things settle down) and the others. They hunt terrorists, conspirators and evil geniuses again, except now it doesn’t give them a feeling that they are making the world a better place.

For the first time in his life, Steve doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what the right thing is. There is no such term as right anymore. There are no sides left. That hurts.

It may be ridiculous, but it is so easy to hurt Steve now. What made him slightly annoyed before now leaves him breathless, and not in a good way.

What he feels when he sees Natasha is probably comparable to burning alive.

Lord, he should be grateful to all the gods in whom he doesn’t believe that she is even alive, and he is grateful, really. But the thought that they are over is simply driving him insane.

It’s exactly the way it’s been always supposed to be: they went back their normal life and immediately forgot about their odd sort-of-a-relationship. They are just best friends again; Natasha tells him to call the nurse and flirts with Bruce. Again. Steve’s always been trying to be a good person, but he can’t help hating Bruce.

And he has no right to it. Friendship with benefits was the only thing they agreed on. It’s not her fault and certainly not Bruce’s that he fell in love with her so stupidly.

Even then, when they were still on the run, he didn’t know how to express it, how to get her to like him. He wanted to bring Natasha flowers and breakfasts in bed, but she isn’t the kind of girl who like those things, and he doesn’t know other ways to do it.

There would be no point in it anyway. Natasha isn’t his and she’ll never be, no matter what he does. This is just how the world works.

//

In a September evening, Natasha is walking to the shower room, tired as hell. They just came back from a mission and they’d had another one just a day ago. That is actually unacceptable, but the Sokovia accords are signed and there’s no turning back. Natasha spends almost half an hour in the shower. Many civilians have died during the mission – too many, twelve without the wounded. Natasha has no heart, but knowing that she could have, should have prevented that and failed makes her feel… uncomfortable. Even after all those years.

And this very disturbance they all always experience after missions like that must be the reason why Steve seems so obviously relieved to hug Natasha who’s just nearly bumped into him in the corridor. She is exhausted and upset, and, of course, she doesn’t want to see anyone right now, but it’s Steve, he holds her and strokes her head with his nose slightly. Too loud of an exhale leaves her chest against her will. After just a second they’re kissing slowly, and it’s unclear who was the first to reach out to the other (but it’s more likely that it was Natasha). Her room is just a few doors away, and everything happens so easily as if it hadn’t been over four months.

Almost-cuddling later feels so wonderful that Natasha is internally trembling with delight, as if she were still fifteen. Steve looks so gorgeous in the orange light of the lamp, and touching him skin to skin feels like heaven, and some vulgar romantic song that Friday has mockingly put on isn’t even annoying at all. Natasha suddenly decides to confess, no matter what will follow. She is going to explode if she doesn’t.

She reaches for Steve’s lips, but he suddenly dodges.

Natasha doesn’t even have time to pull back. He smiles awkwardly and stands up so abruptly that she nearly falls down to the floor.

“Where are you going?” Natasha says stupidly, although the answer is clear already. Steve’s response feels like a kick in the stomach, a shot in the back and a hit with a knife handle in the temple.

“It’s warm here,” he says it as if it’s the only reason there could ever be. He gets dressed and leaves.

That’s it.

Natasha remembers exactly what she said the first time she got into his bed. Apparently, he does, too. And he’s been adamant that she only sleeps in his bed because she gets cold otherwise all of this damn time.

Or he only said that to get rid of her now, which is even worse.

Natasha thought she had no heart.

She shouldn’t be staring at the ceiling right know with her eyes empty and analyzing everything with a maniacal thoroughness. That was exactly what they’d goddamn agreed on. They are friends with benefits, and everything beyond that has always been at Natasha’s initiative. Steve’s never really wanted that, but he’s such a damn gentleman, such a nice person, it’s not much trouble for him so he’s been indulging her. And now he thinks that it’s gone too far, or he’s just tired of it, or during those four months he’s realized that he he’s better off without her. So there’s no point in crying.

Natasha feels like she is about to sob into her pillow as though in a soap opera.

The next morning, she tries to act normal and succeeds. She pushes her feelings aside and lives as she’s lived before. In a way, it’s even easier now that the uncertainty is gone. She knows how she feels and how Steve feels. That is not too bad of a deal.

A week later, he kisses her again. That feels so awful, so unexpectedly resentful that she pushes him away, barely stopping herself from slapping him. She doesn’t feel used by him, not really, but she’s afraid she might, and that is enough for her already.

Natasha should probably talk to him and explain. She’s not okay with having sex only, he doesn’t want anything except that, so there’s no point in keeping going. But saying that would be almost like saying she loves him. Natasha runs away cowardly. Everything goes back to normal.

In early November, the two of them get sent to work undercover to monitor a man who sells weapons of supposedly alien origin. He awaits meeting with a buyer in a hotel in Las Vegas. Natasha and Steve settle in a suite two doors away from the suspect’s room and pretend to be a married couple in order to look as ordinary as possible. Of course, there’s only one bed in the room. Natasha moves to its very edge, not trusting her heart that is beating wildly.

On the first morning, they hug in the lobby and read some tourist brochure, pretending to be a lovesick couple of newlyweds. Their performance is tacky as hell, and Natasha wishes this morning would never end.

//

Steve doesn’t have time to properly wake up nor to think about what he’s supposed to do when Natasha starts to tremble and sob quietly on the opposite side of the terribly large bed. Just as before, he untangles her from the sheets, ridiculously fondly pulls her to his lap and keeps stroking her back until she opens her eyes. It feels so nice to just hold her as they are both wrapped in one blanket.

The last time they had sex, Steve left right after, and even though it was the right thing to do he can’t help regretting it. Natasha was cuddling with him, didn’t want to let him go; did he really have to leave? He still has no idea what is going on in her head and why she would want any of it, but it’s really no wonder as he’s never understood her. He knows she doesn’t love him, but why can’t he just let go of himself and enjoy what she can give him?

Natasha cries quietly in Steve’s shirt, he strokes her back along the spine, kisses her head and mumbles some soothing bullshit in her hair. The feeling that he hasn’t been this happy for a long while doesn’t seem to go away.

//

Natasha doesn’t usually have nightmares, but this night she does. She won’t even be able to remember what exactly the dream is about later, but when the feeling of being pulled up wakes her up, her entire face is wet. Steve puts her on his lap, holds and lulls her, just as he used to do when things were still good between them and it didn’t cause this excruciating awkwardness. This is all just too much, and Natasha’s inner voice tells her to run away right know, but she stays and cries on Steve’s shoulder for a few more minutes. Then she takes a few gulps from a battle of water from the nightstand and goes back to bed. A few seconds later, she moves closer to Steve with some sort of a cowardly hope. He holds her as if he expected it, and of course, they end up having sex. Physically, Natasha feels incredibly good, but internally she is shaking from disgust to her own spinelessness.

Now that they don’t have different beds to run away from each other, things somehow go back to the way they used to be. They have a lot of sex, kiss a lot and cuddle in their sleep. Natasha hates herself, Steve and this whole damn situation.

During the raid on said arms dealer, Steve takes a bullet in the lung. Natasha has no heart, but she discharges half of her clip into the shooter before she even has time to realize what she’s doing.

She is insanely mad at Steve because he is a moron and doesn’t care about his own safety at all, so she sits near his bed in the hospital and stares at him coldly all of the nine hours that it takes him to wake up. When Steve finally opens his eyes, she yells at him for a while. Then she goes to a dirty public toilet and cries.

After washing her face, she punches the tiled wall in helpless anger. During the time she’s been waiting for him to awake, a crystal-clear thought occurred to her: she would have shielded him with her own body if she’d had the chance to.

When they’ve returned to the base, Natasha tries to ignore Steve until Tony tells a bunch of annoying jokes at once like he always does and mentions that the face of the man who’s shot Steve is now completely messed because of her. Later Steve asks Natasha why she’s done it, and this whole situation makes her so damn mad that she tells him the entire truth, unexpectedly even for herself. After finishing, she looks at him expectantly. Naturally, he is silent. How could he respond, though? Say that he loves her, too? Ridiculous. Natasha shakes her head slightly.

“Nevermind,” she exhales, turns around and leaves.

//

Steve doesn’t know how he’s supposed to react. The only thing he can think of is do as Natasha said and act like that conversation’s never happened.

He has no idea why Natasha said all of those things and backed up right after. He’s never been good at understanding women – actually, he’s never been good at understanding people in general. For some reason, it takes a while for the simplest conclusion to occur to him: that Natasha really meant what she said.

And it also takes Steve about a week more to get used to that insane idea and decide what to do next.

Of course, the best decision would be to talk to Natasha. After all, they are both adults. But just the thought of it makes something inside of Steve twist in fright, and he realizes that he will be way too nervous to be able to say something that actually makes sense. He is exactly 100 years old, and he still doesn’t know how to talk about feelings properly.

One night, when Steve has already gone to bed, he suddenly decides that it’s time to finally do something. Already halfway to Natasha’s room, it occurs to him that he could have gotten everything wrong. But if he stops now, he doesn’t know when the next time he feels determined enough again is going to be.

He knocks at the door and thinks that it’s unlikely that she’ll let him in. It’s not even about the time: ever since that conversation Natasha’s been carefully avoiding him.

But Friday lets him in. Natasha is lying in the bed, her dark red hair scattered across the pillow. She looks at him directly, but he doesn’t know what that look means.

He freezes awkwardly in the middle of the room. All the words he’s been internally repeating over and over again for days are suddenly gone. The silence is broken by the ridiculously loud sound of his breath only.

Natasha doesn’t seem tense, her eyes still looking at him calmly. She always looks calm, though. Her gaze makes him want to run away for the first time in his life. He isn’t even afraid of being ridiculous anymore - it’s not like it can get any worse than it already is.

“May I lay down?” his voice sounds as loud as a gong blow in the silence.

Natasha moves a bit, making some room for him. Steve lies down near her in too much of a rush. He doesn’t know how close to her he’s supposed to be, so he goes with the smallest distance that is enough for them not to touch each other. Steve’s heart is pounding like a drum, so it takes him a minute to catch that Natasha’s is beating almost as fast.

Good lord, this is all so stupid.

After everything that’s happened between them, when Steve knows he loves Natasha and is almost sure that the feeling is mutual, he lies a few centimeters away from her, shaking from fear of rejection.

Natasha must be thinking the same right now because she sighs, moves closer to Steve firmly, stands on her elbow and looks down at him demandingly.

“I love you,” he says without even thinking.

“I know,” Natasha says softly and leans in to kiss him. “I love you, too.”


End file.
